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Broadcasting a World of Whiteness

THOSE looking for hints of racial tone-deafness on the second episode of “Girls,” last Sunday on HBO, wouldn’t have been let down. In an early scene Hannah, played by the show’s creator, Lena Dunham, and her nonboyfriend Adam (Adam Driver) have sex; as they’re finishing, Adam promises to make the “continent of Africa on” Hannah’s arm, a vexing intersection of eroticism and geography. Later Jessa (Jemima Kirke), nervously facing down an abortion, insists, “I want to have children with many different men, of different races,” as if they were trinkets to be collected, like key chains or snow globes.

Of course none of those men are to be found on “Girls,” which set off a media-class kerfuffle upon its debut this month, assailed — though with concern, not vitriol — for failing to depict much beyond the wages of white privilege.

Call it progress. Whiteness is too often invisible on television, so much the norm that it no longer begs evaluation, and for whatever advances “Girls” makes in expanding the range of women on television, and the sorts of conversations they’re permitted to have, it certainly lacks for other forms of diversity. All the central figures — four young women scavenging New York for bits of love — are white. So far nonwhite characters are tertiary at best, with just a handful of lines among them.

But cloistered though it may be, “Girls” is a symptom, not the disease. The debate over the show is related to, but not a full picture of, greater debates about race and television, about representation and power, and about reception. The vigor of the response has far more to do with what’s not shown on television as a whole than what is or is not shown on “Girls,” and also with who’s chosen to pay attention.

Television is nowhere near diverse enough — not in its actors, its writers or its show runners. The problems identified by critics of “Girls” are systemic, traceable to network executives who greenlight shows and shoot down plenty of others. It’s at that level that diversity stands or falls.

And “Girls” is hardly alone in its whiteness. Far more popular shows like “Two and a Half Men” or “How I Met Your Mother” blithely exist in a world that rarely considers race. They’re less scrutinized, because unlike the Brooklyn-bohemian demimonde of “Girls,” the worlds of those shows are ones that writers and critics — the sort who both adore and have taken offense at “Girls” — have little desire to be a part of. White-dominant television has almost always been the norm. Why would “Girls” be any different?

It is far less egregious than, say, its distant Brooklyn cousin, “2 Broke Girls,” which may have a more diverse cast but paints its minority characters (the diner boss, Han, and the cashier, Earl) with awful, gauche strokes. And it’s mystifying that there was never an outcry over “Eastbound & Down,” which survived three seasons on HBO on a diet of ethnic stereotypes, potty humor and post-irony. The overtness of that show — Kenny Powers riding a Confederate-flag boogie board, and so on — was its defense. It was hiding in plain sight, painting its protagonists as backward but lovable.

HBO certainly knows how to do better. “How to Make It in America,” recently canceled after two seasons, tried to capture New York’s polyglot downtown scene; it failed for being dull, not undiverse. And of course there was “The Wire.” But the criticism of “Girls” reflects how television is increasingly perceived, which is as a public trust of sorts. That’s at least in part the thinking behind the recent lawsuit filed against ABC and the producers of “The Bachelor” by two black men who were rejected early in the application process and charged racism. Television, the men are effectively arguing, should be doing the hard work of diversity. Of course it doesn’t.

It’s troubling that there are almost no minority romantic heroes in network prime time, be they on scripted or reality programming. In fact there are probably a greater number of white characters with bumbling racial politics. NBC’s Thursday-night comedy bloc alone features two key offenders: Jack Donaghy on “30 Rock,” who passes off harsh stereotypes under the guise of extreme class privilege, filtered through a veil of knowing irony that permeates the whole show; and Pierce Hawthorne on “Community,” a bumbling out-of-touch galoot whose backward sentiments on race aren’t softened a bit by the diversity of his circle of friends.

Yet despite these gargantuan blind spots, it is, in places, a robust time for diversity on television. Plenty of shows on network prime time — “Happy Endings,” “Modern Family,” “Glee” — have moved past strenuous and awkward efforts at integration to something more natural and evolved. Diversity is reflected in bodies, sure, but also subject matter and themes, and each of these shows works hard on multiple levels to convey a range of experiences. “Happy Endings” in particular has proved to be an example of how black-theme humor isn’t exclusive to shows with all-black casts. The show’s friends are diverse; they get one another’s jokes.

Still, network television shows — even premium- and basic-cable shows — with predominantly minority casts remain rare, outside niche channels, though old ideas about niche and universality are changing rapidly. Shows like “The Game” on BET and Spanish-language programs on Univision often outperform their old-boy network competition.

Thus far the tone of the reception to “Girls” has been distinctly personal, as if its arrival has remedied a longstanding grievance of certain vocal members of the news media: that there weren’t any shows aimed squarely at them, with characters who live lives they recognize. But “Girls” ended up being a letdown to some of those viewers for precisely the same reason it is an innovation: It has no real competition. It is the antidote to more conventional programs, but it has no antidote of its own. It has to carry the hopes of a whole class of viewers who ache to see themselves represented but who can’t all possibly fit in.

The blowback arrived in the age of swarm criticism: One idea begets Twitter messages, blog posts and aggregated outrage that burns hot and fast. The show’s case wasn’t helped when one of its writers, in response to the controversy, posted on Twitter, “What really bothered me most about Precious was that there was no representation of ME”: a bogus comparison and an ill-timed one as well. (The post, and an apology, have since been deleted.)

Ms. Dunham’s relatability also plays a part in the intimacy of the critiques. Many of the naysayers are themselves young creatives who identify as squarely in, or near, Ms. Dunham’s demographic. Ms. Dunham — as a young female show runner, a rarity — is readily identifiable to her target viewers. They likely feel more access to her than to, say, Tina Fey, and therefore find it easier to share true feelings with her, even the negative ones. That Ms. Dunham is an anomaly has also made her more vulnerable.

One of the things that she is selling is verisimilitude, and many critiques have been as much about her back story as her show. Whether there’s more diversity in her own life (or the lives of her writers and other associates) than has been reflected on “Girls,” we can’t know.

“It can seem really rarefied,” she said of the show’s world in a recent interview. “When I get a tweet from a girl who’s like, ‘I’d love to watch the show, but I wish there were more women of color,’ you know what? I do too, and if we have the opportunity to do a second season, I’ll address that.”

So maybe, in a second season, “Girls” will reach beyond its white walls, though if it’s done only to temper criticism and not in a way that’s true to Ms. Dunham’s personal experiences — the gasoline of the show — it may fall flat. What’s a worse fate: clumsy token diversity or honest whiteness?

Ms. Dunham may at least in part understand her untenable position. In the second episode Hannah goes on a job interview and gets comfortable with the interviewer, who like her is a young, white creative type. But she gets too comfortable, making an off-color joke that rapidly shifts the tone of the conversation. “Jokes about rape, or race, or incest or any of that kind of stuff, it’s not office O.K.,” her interviewer tells her before showing her the door. In other words, feel free to write what you know, but understand it’s not for everyone.

Correction: May 13, 2012

A picture caption on April 29 with a column about the new HBO series “Girls” and racial diversity on television misidentified one of the actors on HBO’s “Eastbound & Down,” which was discussed in the column. He is Danny McBride, not Kenny Powers, which is the character he plays on the show.

A version of this article appears in print on April 29, 2012, on page AR20 of the New York edition with the headline: Broadcasting a World of Whiteness. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe